On Wednesday afternoon, attorney Douglas Mendes, SC, urged Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar to return to Parliament to amend the Equal Opportunity Act specifically to protect people from discrimination on the basis of their sexual orientation.Mr Mendes pointed to the results of a poll done by Caribbean Development Research Services for UNAids, which found that a majority of respondents, 78 per cent, believe that discrimination against people based on their sexual orientation was unacceptable.
In a recent Guardian column, Mr Mendes noted that the function of any Bill of Rights in a liberal democracy "is to protect the rights of those among us in the minority."The Government then, should not necessarily be guided by the will of a vocal majority, but should be moved to put its hand on the scales to ensure a proper balance of humanity and justice in its legislation.And yet, this has proven to be difficult.
The Equal Opportunity Act of 2000 makes special provision to exclude sexual orientation from its declarations on unlawful discrimination.The Ramadhar Constitution Commission declined to commit to formally describing sexual orientation as worthy of protection from discrimination in the Constitution, deferring the matter for further public discussion.
In New York in September for a presentation to the United Nations, and after giving the feature address at the T&T Investment Conference in Manhattan, Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar noted that T&T, with its "divided voices" was not ready to establish a referendum dealing with gay rights and the decriminalization of alternative sexual lifestyles.
In support of that position, Mrs Persad-Bissessar noted that the matter was not only a secular one and had been fiercely opposed by the Roman Catholic Church. And yet, this is one of those situations in which there is value in remembering that governments and religions serve very different roles in the harmonising of a modern society.
While it's unlikely that the UNAids poll is going to lead to the Prime Minister overturning such a public position, it points to a dissonance between the official narrative on sexual discrimination and the understanding of the man in the street of what is right and proper.At the very least, the poll should suggest that there might be grounds for more independent evaluation of public sentiment on the matter and further public discussion on the rights of all citizens of T&T.
This isn't simply a matter of aligning local perspectives with those of the First World, as opponents of such liberal moves inevitably suggest, but of honouring the principles underlying our democracy which guarantee on the one hand, an equal place for all, while on the other upholds laws that penalise gay citizens with draconian sex laws written in a far less enlightened era.
Mr Mendes may have hoped to urge the Prime Minister to more urgent action on the matter, but there is room here to begin with conservative action by inviting public discussion on the matter.Such discussions might contemplate these laws as an indicator of how well Trinidad and Tobago is progressing in its ambitions to being a humane and tolerant society to all its citizens.
Politics is best served by the satisfaction of the majority, but governance must be specific and industrious in its protection of the minority.